Android verses iPhone

For the last month I’ve been in the fortunate (?) position of “owning” two mobile phones.

One, I’ve had for over a year: the quickly superseded Samsung Galaxy S – an Android phone.

Two, my work phone, a brand new iPhone 4S with the Siri feature disabled for security reasons, which replaced my Blackberry Bold.

Every day I unconsciously compare the two and so I thought I’d share my observations with you.

Android keypad

Samsung/Android

I love Swype. This enables you to “type” by dragging your finger around the keyboard. It is superfast.

Menus. In every app, every screen you can nearly always find more options to do more stuff. If you can’t see it on the screen, it will no doubt be in a menu. Even if there is an option on the screen and you are suffering domestic blindness, you often find the option in the menu. This is good.

Market. It is not iTunes. This should be enough of an explanation. It is easy to navigate. Easy to download. I can put apps easily on the SD card freeing up memory.

Flexibility. I don’t need to wait to upgrade my phone operating system. If it gets upgraded I can (or rather Groover can) root the system. It’s like getting a whole new phone.

Favourites. I can use my one Favourites menu to text or call or email.

Sliders. I like the fact that my apps all live off the front screens… unless I want them on the front screen.

Widgets. Android has them. They are good.

I love the universal power thingy.

I like the little menu on the top bar that shows me notifications.

I like the big screen.

iPhone

Nice packaging and nice touch and feel. It feels more solid (and indeed is heavier) than my Samsung. It has that Apple sweet design.

I really like that little switch on the side that makes it silent with one touch. It’s annoying to have to click the up and down buttons on the Android to make games silent. And the silent touch button on the top menu of Android only controls phone functions.

I like the setting that allows me to see what messages/emails I have even when my phone is locked.

I like that it has a flash – my Samsung doesn’t (although I think the new one does).

I quite like the one touch to call favourites… although I keep forgetting that it doesn’t give me the option to message so I dial people when I want to message them.

I like the voicemail link at the bottom of the call menu.

I like the way you go straight into contacts by sliding the front screen to the left… well your finger goes right but the screen goes left… that’s a handy little feature.

I like the fact it asks me what size of photo I want to email.

I like the variety of apps. But that’s more of a whinge at companies and organisations who only or mostly develop apps for iPhones and ignore the huge Android market. You know who you are!

Whinges

Well lets start with apps… and see the last point above.

Also hate the way iPhone won’t download an app unless I’m on wireless (but I concede that might be a work setting).

iTunes

My main whinge with iPhone is the keypad. What’s up with that?!!!! To get to numbers and symbols you need to change keyboards. To find an underscore you need to go to a third keyboard. Frustrating. And no Swype. Apple – you need to get Swype.

And I’d like widgets on the iPhone… I like a really big clock because my eyesight isn’t what it was.

Android could do that notification thingy when the phone is locked – that would be nice. While you get a symbol showing what has arrived, it’s nice to get a precis of the item without having to open a menu.

And Samsung should defs get that switch that allows for quick silencing of the phone.

Oh and could someone teach me how to search in iPhone mail?

Just a note on Blackberry – what I liked most about my old Bold was the keypad. Keypads are important to me. 🙂

So I suppose you want to know what I would buy if I had to choose between them.

Yeah no…

I don’t know.

I think at the moment I might have to go with a Swype-enabled phone – simply because it is so good, and I hate the Apple keyboard.